Our Story

In May of 2014, Joe Dadey and Jack Drury met at what was then known as Captain Cook’s in Saranac Lake (now Bitters and Bones) to share an adult beverage and some ideas about creating new recreational opportunities in the Adirondacks. As a former professor at Paul Smith’s College who traveled to New Zealand and other places near and far with students studying ecotourism, Joe brought to that night’s conversation his thoughts on establishing a hut-to-hut system in the Adirondacks. Joe had seen how popular hut-to-hut travel was in other places around the world, and wondered and studied with students what an Adirondack hut-to-hut system could look like. As a long-time resident of Saranac Lake with rich experiences as a wilderness recreation educator and leadership trainer, Jack was at that time writing a blog entitled “Ten Trails We Should Build Before We Worry about Converting Rails to Trails.” The merging of both Jack’s and Joe’s ideas resulted in their initial conceptualization of a community-based hut-to-hut system in the Adirondacks, one with routes that start, pass through, and finish in Adirondack communities. The seed of an idea was planted.​They applied the next month for a New York State Department of State grant for funding that would underwrite their efforts to prepare a report that conceptualized hut-to-hut routes throughout the Adirondacks. They received the grant in December 2014. Jack and Joe named it the Adirondack Community-based Trails and Lodging System (ACTLS) project. The notion of an Adirondack hut-to-hut system was off and running. The ACTLS planning project, with all its conceptualized routes, will be completed December 2017. (Visit the ACTLS webpage here for more information http://www.adirondacktrailsandlodging.org/) ​In the fall of 2015, Jack, Joe and their colleague Duane Gould received a contract from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to fast track what they were doing with the ACTLS project and conceptualize routes in the Five Towns area of the Central Adirondacks. The result of their December 2015 work is a document entitled Conceptual Plan for a Hut-to-Hut Destination Trail System for the Five Towns of Long Lake, Newcomb, Indian Lake, Minerva, and North Hudson. This report identifies over twenty hut-to-hut routes with strategic locations for lodging.

Joe and Jack convened a group of friends and interested others in the spring of 2016 to conduct a focus group and explore possible names for the nonprofit that they saw was needed to champion and coordinate the Adirondack hut-to-hut initiative. The work of the focus group, coupled with an online survey and services provided by adworkshop in Lake Placid, chose Adirondack Hamlets to Huts as the name for the new nonprofit, a name which they believed best captured the community-based application of hut-to-hut travel to the Adirondacks.

Adirondack Hamlets to Huts was incorporated in November 2016 and became an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit in April 2017.​

We are now focused on transitioning from “imagining” to “doing”…

Meet the Team

Joe Dadey PhD

Executive Director

Joe possesses a Bachelor’s degree in Forest Biology from SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, New York, a Master’s degree in Outdoor Recreation from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois and a PhD in Environmental Policy/Environment Communication from SUNY-ESF. He taught for twenty years at the college-level, including eight years in the Recreation, Adventure Travel and Ecotourism (RATE) program at Paul Smith’s College (PSC). Joe worked a couple of seasons as an Assistant Forest Ranger in the Adirondack High Peaks and has co-led numerous 40-day expeditions with adjudicated youth through Project USE of New Jersey. He has also co-instructed sixteen month-long outdoor leadership expeditions in the Adirondacks, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and traveled with PSC students to study ecotourism in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Belize, the Dominican Republic and New Zealand.

Jack K. Drury

​Senior Advisor

Jack has been facilitating experiential learning at an international level for over 25 years and has provided training to educators throughout North America, the United Kingdom and the Middle East. He is Professor Emeritus of North Country Community College having founded and directed the college’s Wilderness Recreation Leadership Program for nearly twenty years. He is past president of the Wilderness Education Association and co-author of the definitive wilderness leadership text The Backcountry Classroom: Lessons, Tools, and Activities for Teaching Outdoor Leaders as well as The Camper's Guide to Outdoor Pursuits: Finding Safe, Nature Friendly, Comfortable Passage Through Wild Places. He is a contributing author to Hiking and Backpacking, Adventure Education: Theory and Application, and The Wilderness Educator.

Jack resides in Saranac Lake, NY with his wife Phyliss where he actively supports many Adirondack Park issues. They have four adult children.